Paladin of Souls

CHAPTER SEVEN

ISTA STOOD IN HER STIRRUPS. WRAPPED HER DRY TONGUE around her rusty Roknari. -I cry ransom-. And in Ibran: "I am the Sera dy Ajelo, and the provincar of Baocia is my patron! I pledge his ransom upon myself and upon all these men of mine! All of them!" And repeated in Roknari, to be sure: "Ransoms for all!" An officer rode forward from his men. He was marked by a better grade of chain mail, fine decorations in pressed gold leaf on the leather of bridle, saddle, and scabbard, and a green silk baldric worked in gold-and-white thread with the flying pelicans of Jokona. His typical crinkled Roknari bronze-blond hair was done up in crisscrossing rows of braids ending in a queue. His eyes summed the Chalionese numbers; perhaps took in the garb and badges of the Daughter's Order with a slight tinge of respect? Ista, who had silently repudiated her prayers in her mind during all the weeks of her pilgrimage, though she'd moved her lips by rote in the responses, prayed now in her hammering heart: Lady, in this Your season of strength, cast a cloak of protection over these Your loyal servants.

In passable Ibran, the officer cried, "Throw down your weapons!" One last, anguished hesitation; then Ferda shrugged back his vest-cloak and pulled his baldric off over his head. His scabbard and sword struck the dirt with a clank. His belt knife succeeded them. The men of his company followed suit with equal reluctance. Half a dozen crossbows and the pair of spears were lowered more carefully on the growing heap. Their lathered, blowing horses stood quiescent as Ferda and his men were made to dismount and sit on the ground a little way off, surrounded by Jokonans with drawn swords and cocked bows.

A soldier seized the bridle of Ista's horse and made motions to her to get down. Her legs almost gave way as her boots hit the ground; her knees felt like custard. She jerked back from his raised hand, though she realized almost at once that he'd only meant to grab her elbow to keep her from falling. The officer approached and gave her a demi-salute, possibly meant to be reassuring.

"Chalionese noblewoman." It was half a question; her plain dress did not quite support her claimed status. His eyes searched for, and did not find, jewelry, rings, brooches. "What are you doing here?"

"I have every right to be here." Ista lifted her chin. "You have interrupted my pilgrimage."

"Quintarian devil-worshipper." He spat, ritually, but to the side. "What do you pray for, eh, woman?"

Ista raised one brow. "Peace." She added, "And you will address me as Sera"

He snorted, but seemed convinced, or at least grew less curious. Half a dozen men were starting to poke in the saddlebags; with a spate of Roknari too fast for Ista to follow, he strode among them and shoved them back.

She saw why as the rest of the column draggled up, and a couple of men carrying the green pouches of royal clerks rode hastily forward, followed by what were obviously the senior officers. Now the bags were all pulled off and looted in a much more systematic fashion, with a running inventory. The clerks were there to make sure that the prince of Jokona's one-fifth share was properly counted. One of them walked about, stylus busy upon his tablet, noting the horses and their gear. No question but that this was an official expedition of some kind, and not some spontaneous banditry.

The officer reported to his seniors; Ista heard the word Baocia twice. One of the men rummaging through the saddlebags straightened up with a glad cry; Ista thought he might have found a purse, but instead he waved Ferda's maps. He rushed over to his officers, crying in Roknari, "Look, my lords, look! Charts of Chalion! Now we are not lost!" Ista blinked. Then she began to look around more carefully.

The mounts of the men who'd overtaken them were every bit as lathered and exhausted as their own, and Ista, remembering Liss's remarks about horses flagging late in the race, wondered if her party might not have out ridden them after all, but for being trapped by the advance patrol. The men looked hot, worn, filthy, stubbled. Their fine Roknari pattern-braids were in disarray, as if they had not been redone for days or even weeks. The men riding up late looked worse. Many were bandaged or bruised or scabbed, and most of them led extra horses with empty saddles, sometimes three or four in a string. Not booty, for most of the animals were decked in Roknari-style gear. Some might be remounts. Not all. The baggage train that limped up behind them all was strangely scant.

If the baggage train marked the end of their company, and there was no sign of Foix or dy Cabon among the prisoners... Ista permitted herself a shiver of hope. Even if the clerks counting horses counted men as well, and noted the two empty saddles, by the time they circled back to search, Foix would surely have moved the divine and himself to better cover. If Foix was as quietly sly on his feet as he was with his tongue—if the bear-demon had not put his mind in too much disarray—if the Jokonans had not simply slain them and left their bodies by the roadside...

One thing was certain. These Jokonans were not men moving to some secret attack. They were fleeing a defeat, by every sign, or some dreadfully costly victory. Running north for home. She was glad for Chalion, but increasingly anxious for herself and Ferda and his men.

Tense, exhausted, strained men on the ragged edge of their endurance made worrisome captors.

The officer came back and directed her to sit by the roadside in the mottled shadow of a small, bent tree, some odd northern species with wide palmate leaves. Foix's bags yielded a purse of gold that cheered the prince's clerks, and the officers eyed her with a shade more respect, or at least, calculation. They pulled apart the baggage from the captured mules, as well. Ista turned her face away and declined to notice the soldiers raucously playing about with her clothing. The officer inquired more closely into her relationship with the provincar of Baocia, and Ista trotted out Sera dy Ajelo's imaginary family tree. He seemed anxious to ascertain that the wealthy provincar would actually deliver a ransom for her.

"Oh, yes," said Ista distantly. "He will come in person, I expect." With ten thousand swordsmen at his back, five thousand archers, and the Marshal dy Palliar's cavalry as well. It occurred to her that if she did not want men to die for her, she'd gone about it in exactly the wrong way. But no. There might yet be chances to escape, or be traded out at a tiny fraction of her real worth, if her incognito held. Liss... had Liss made it away? No soldiers had yet returned along the track dragging her resisting behind them, nor as a limp corpse tossed over a saddle.

The officers argued over the maps, while the men and animals rested in what shade could be found, and the flies buzzed around them. The Ibran-speaking officer brought her water in a rather noisome skin bag, and she hesitated, licked dusty cracked lips, and drank. It was fairly fresh, at least. She indicated he should take it to Ferda and his troop, and he did. At length, she was put back up on her own horse, with her hands lashed to the pommel, the horse in turn roped with several others following the baggage train. Ferda's men were towed in a like line, but farther forward, surrounded by more armed soldiers. The advance scouts were redeployed, and the column started north once more.

Ista stared around at her fellow prisoners, tied to horses as she was. They were oddly few in number, some dozen debilitated men and women, and no children at all. Another older woman rode near her, jerked along in another string of tired horses. Her clothes, though filthy, were finely made and elaborately decorated—clearly no common woman, but someone whose family might offer a rich ransom. Ista leaned toward her. "Where do these soldiers come from? Besides Jokona."

"Some Roknari hell, I think," said the woman.

"No, that would be their destination," murmured Ista back.

A sour smile lifted one corner of the woman's mouth; good, she was not shocked stupid, then. Or at least, not anymore. "I do pray so, hourly. They took me in the town of Rauma, in Ibra."

"Ibra!" Ista glanced leftward at the mountain range rising in the distance. They must have scrambled out of Ibra over some little-used pass, and dropped down into Chalion to cut north for home. And the pursuit must have been fiery, to drive them to such a desperate ploy. "No wonder they seemed to have fallen from the sky."

"Where in Chalion are we?"

"The province of Tolnoxo. These raiders still have over a hundred miles to go to safety, across the rest of Tolnoxo and all of Caribastos, before they reach the border of Jokona. If they can." She hesitated. "I have hopes that they have lost their secrecy. I think some of my party escaped."

The woman's eyes flared hot, briefly. "Good." She added after a little, "They fell upon Rauma at dawn, by surprise. It was well planned— they must have swung wide around some dozen better-prepared towns closer to the border. I had brought my daughters into town to make offerings at the Daughter's altar, for my eldest was—pray the goddess, still is—to be married. The Jokonans were more interested in booty than rapine and destruction, at first. They left the rest of the temple alone, though they held all they'd caught there at sword's point. But then they delayed their withdrawal to pull down the Bastard's Tower, and to torment the poor divine who had it in her charge." The woman grimaced. "They caught her still in her white robes; there was no chance to hide her. They slew her husband, when he tried to defend her."

For a woman devoted to the fifth god, the Quadrenes would also start with the thumbs and tongue. Then rape, most likely, prolonged and vicious.

"They burned her in her god's tower, in the end." The woman sighed. "It seemed almost a mercy by then. But their blasphemy cost them all they'd gained, for the march of Rauma's troops came upon them while they were still in the town. The Son give him strength for his sword arm! He had no mercy upon them, for the divine had been his half sister. He had got her the benefice, I suppose, to keep her in comfort."

Ista hissed sympathy through her teeth.

"My daughters escaped in the chaos ... I think. Perhaps the Mother heard my prayers, for in my terror I did offer myself in exchange for them. But I was thrown upon a horse and carried off by these raiders who broke and retreated, for they could guess by my clothes and jewels I would profit them."

She bore no jewels now, naturally.

"Their greed bought me some consideration, although they used my maid... hideously. I think she is still alive, though. They abandoned all their lesser prisoners in the wilderness, because they were slowing them on the climb. If they all stayed together, and did not panic, they may have helped each other to rescue by now. I hope ... I hope they carried the wounded."

Ista nodded understanding. She wondered what Prince Sordso of Jokona could possibly be about, permitting—no, dispatching—this raid. It seemed more a probe than the first wave of an invasion. Perhaps it had been intended merely to stir up North Ibra, tie down the old roya's troops in a broad defense, and so prevent them from being sent in support of Chalion in the autumn campaign against Visping? If so, the strategy had been a little too swiftly successful. Although these men might have been an intentional sacrifice without even knowing it...

The not-too-badly wounded also rode with the baggage train. The severely wounded, Ista supposed, had been left along the route to the dubious mercy of the column's recent victims. One man caught Ista's eye. He was an older officer, very senior judging by his clothing and gear. He bore no bandage or visible wound, but he rode along tied to his saddle like a prisoner, slack-faced and moaning, his braids tumbled down. His mumbled words were not intelligible even in Roknari, Ista judged. Had he suffered a blow to the head, perhaps? His drooling disturbed her, and his noises set her teeth on edge; she was secretly relieved when the baggage train shuffled its order and he was led farther from her.

A few miles up the road they came upon the men who'd been sent in pursuit of Liss, both riding one stumbling horse, leading the second one lamed. They were greeted with inventive Roknari cursing and cuffs from their furious commander; both ruined horses were turned loose and replaced with two of the many spares. Ista concealed a grim smile. More consulting of Ferda's maps followed, and more scouts were dispatched. The column lumbered on.

An hour later they came to the hamlet where Ista's party had planned to turn east and take the road to Maradi. It was wholly abandoned, not a person to be found, nor any animal but a few stray chickens, cats, and rabbits. Liss made it this far, it seems, Ista thought with satisfaction. The Jokonans ransacked it quickly, taking what food and fodder they could find, argued about setting it afire, made more debate over the maps, and finally hastened north on the dwindling continuation of their road. Prudence and discipline still held, if tenuously, for they left the hamlet standing behind them, with no rising column of black smoke, visible for miles, to mark their passing. The sun fell behind the mountains.

Dusk was thickening when the column turned off the easier but dangerously open road and began scrambling up what would in any other season have been a dry wash. A stream gurgled down the middle of it now. After a couple of miles, they turned to the north again, making their way through brush to an area denser with trees and cover. Ista wondered how futile an attempt at concealment it would prove— they'd left enough hoof marks, broken vegetation, and dung in their wake that even she could have tracked them.

The Jokonans made camp in a shaded dell, lighting only a few fires, and those just long enough to sear their stolen chickens. But they had to give their horses time to eat their looted fodder and grain, and regain strength. The half-dozen women prisoners were put together, given bedrolls no worse than the Jokonans themselves used—probably the same. Their food was also no worse than what their captors ate. In any case, it did not seem to be grilled cat. Ista wondered if she was sleeping in a dead man's bedding, and what dreams it would bring her.

Something useful would be a nice change. It wasn't quite a prayer. But no prophetic dreams, and few of the usual kind, came to her as she tossed, dozing badly and waking with a start at odd noises, or when one of the other women started sobbing in her blankets, inadequately muffled.

One of the injured Jokonans died in the night, apparently from a fever brought on by his wounds. His burial in the dawn was hasty and lacking in ceremony, but the Brother in His mercy took up his soul nonetheless, Ista thought; or at least, she felt no distraught ghost as she passed the sad shallow scraping in the soil. Her son Teidez had died of an infected wound. She watched for a moment when no Jokonan eyes were on her, and covertly made the Quadrene sign of blessing toward the gravesite, for whatever comfort it might bring to a dead boy lost in a foreign land.

The column did not return to the road, but pushed on north through the hilly wilderness. Necessarily, they went more slowly, and she could feel her captors growing more tense with every passing hour.

The mountains to their left dwindled; at some point toward evening, they crossed the unmarked boundary into the province of Caribastos. The wilderness grew patchy, forcing detours that swung wide and secretly around walled towns and villages. Streams grew fewer. The Jokonans stopped early to camp by such a brook, and to rest their horses. As a Chalionese border province with the Five Princedoms, Caribastos was better armed, its fortresses in better repair, and its people more alert for the endemic warfare. The Jokonan column would likely try to cross it under the cover of darkness. Three more marches, Ista estimated.

The valuable captive women were again set aside under the trees, brought food, left alone. Until the Ibran-speaking officer, flanked by two of his seniors, approached them in the level light of sunset. He had some papers in his hand, and an intent, disturbed expression on his face. He stopped before Ista, sitting on a log with her back to a tree. She kept silence, making him speak first.

"Greetings, Sera." He gave the title an odd emphasis in his mouth. Without another word, he handed her the papers.

It was a letter, half-finished, rumpled from a sojourn in a saddlebag. The handwriting was Foix's, strong and square. Ista's heart sank even before she read the salutation. It was addressed to Chancellor dy Cazaril, in Cardegoss. After a respectful and unmistakable listing of the great courtier's offices and ranks, it began:

"My Dearest Lord:

"I continue my report as I may. We have left Casilchas behind and come at length to Vinyasca: there is to be a festival here tomorrow. I was glad to be shut of Casilchas. Learned dy Cabon has no notion of proper secrecy or even discretion. By the time he was done blundering about, half the town knew full well that Sera dy Alejo was the dowager royina, and came to court her, which I think did not please her much.

"Upon further observation, I am coming to agree with you; Royina Ista is not mad in any usual sense, though there are times when she makes me feel very strange and foolish, as though she sees or senses or knows things I do not. She still spends long periods in silence, somewhere far off in her sad thoughts. I do not know why I ever thought women chattered. It would be some relief if she would talk more. As for whether her pilgrimage is the result of some god-driven impulse, as you feared after your long prayers in Cardegoss, I still cannot tell. But then, I rode beside towering miracles with you for weeks and never knew, so that shows nothing.

"The Daughter's festival should be a welcome diversion from my worries. I will continue this tomorrow."

The next day's date followed, and the neat writing recommenced.

"The festival went well"—there followed two paragraphs of droll description. "Dy Cabon has gone off to get very drunk. He says it is to blot out bad dreams, though I think it is more likely to induce them. Ferda is not best pleased with him, but the divine has had closer to do with Royina Ista than any of us, so perhaps he needs it. At first I thought him a fat nervous idiot, as I wrote you before, but now I begin to wonder if the idiot may not be me.

"I will write more on this head at our next stop, which is to be some dire hamlet in the hills where some saint came from. I'd be from there, too, if I had the choice. I should be able to dispatch this letter securely from the Daughter's house in Maradi, if we turn that way. I will try to suggest it. I do not think we should venture any farther north, and I have run out of things to read."

The letter broke off there, with half a page left to fill. Foix had evidently been too shaken to add a report on the bear before the Jokonans had overtaken them next day.

Ista looked up. One Jokonan, dark-haired and younger, was watching her with a delighted, avaricious smile. The older, shorter one, who wore a green baldric more heavily encrusted with gold and who she thought was the expedition's commander, or at any rate surviving senior officer, frowned more thoughtfully. She read wider strategic considerations in his eyes, far more disturbing than mere greed. The Ibran-speaking officer looked apprehensive.

She made one more effort to clutch her torn incognito to her, futile as it seemed. She held out the paper in an indifferent hand. "What is this to me?"

Her translator took it back. "Indeed Royina." He favored her with a bow in the Roknari court style, right hand sweeping down before him, thumb tucked in the palm: one part irony, one part wariness.

The commander said in Roknari, "So, this is Royina Iselle's infamous mad mother, truly?" It seems so, my lord. "The largesse of the gods has fallen upon us," said the dark-haired one in a voice that vibrated with excitement. He made the Quadrene four-point sign of blessing, touching forehead, navel, groin, and heart, his thumb carefully folded inward. "In one lucky blow, all of our pains are repaid and our fortunes are made. I thought they kept her locked up in a castle. How is it they were so careless as to let her out to wander about on the roads like this?" said the commander. "Her guard could not have anticipated us here. We did not anticipate us here," the dark-haired one said.

The commander frowned at the letter, though it was plain he could not read more than one word in three of it without the help of his officer. "This spy of their chancellor babbles too carelessly of the gods. It is impious." And it worries you. Good, Ista thought. It was hard to think of Foix as a spy. Although her estimate of his subtlety and wits rose another notch, for he'd not let fall the least hint of his mandate to report upon her. It made perfect sense in retrospect, of course. If he had been writing to anyone in the world but Lord dy Cazaril, it would have offended Ista deeply, but all of Chalion was in the chancellor's charge—and her own debt to the man was as boundless as the sea.

The commander cleared his throat, and continued to Ista in heavily accented Ibran, "You think you are god-touched, mad queen?"

Ista, sitting very still, allowed her lips to curve up just a trifle, enigmatic. "If you were god-touched, you would not have to ask. You would know the answer."

He jerked back, eyes narrowing. "Blasphemous Quintarian."

She gave him her best impassive stare. "Inquire of your god. I promise you shall meet Him soon. His mark is on your brow, and His arms are open to receive you."

The dark-haired one made a noise of inquiry; the Ibran-speaking officer translated her cool remark, an arrow shot at random from Ista's point of view. Although it hardly needed communion with the gods to make that prophecy, given the Jokonan raiders' precarious situation. The commander's lips thinned still more, but he made no further attempt to cross words with her. He at least seemed to grasp how much more perilous his retreat had grown due to her presence here as a prisoner. Liss's escape had been a greater disaster than he'd first guessed.

The women were moved up beside the commander's campsite, and two extra guards were assigned to watch them—to watch Ista, she had no doubt. This put paid to any dream of slipping away into the woods in darkness, in some moment of confusion or inattention.

The evening continued unsettled. A Jokonan soldier was dragged in and whipped for some infraction—attempted desertion, most likely. The senior officers sat close together and debated—sometimes breaking into angry oaths, too loud, then quickly muffled—about whether to hold the column together for mutual defense or break up into small groups and finish the flight to Jokona in better secrecy.

It wouldn't be long before some no longer waited for orders to break and run. Ista had spent part of the long ride, earlier, distracting her mind by counting the Jokonan numbers—the sum had come to some ninety-two men. It would be interesting to count again when the light returned tomorrow. The fewer their company, the less defense staying together would become. How long before the column was forced into splitting by default?

The Jokonan commander had every reason, internal and external, to push on as quickly as possible, and Ista was not surprised when she was wakened at midnight and lashed to a horse again. This time, however, she was moved up from the baggage train and put in hand of the Ibran-speaking officer himself. Two other riders flanked them closely. The column moved off in the darkness, stumbling and cursing.

She had at first expected provincial troops from Tolnoxo to come pelting up behind them on their too-visible trail, but they had certainly crossed out of that district many miles back. With every passing hour, the odds shifted: not attack from behind, but ambush from the front, grew likelier now. It made a certain tactical sense—let the Jokonans expend their energy transporting themselves to a battlefield picked by their enemies.

And yet... was it possible that Liss had still maintained Ista's incognito, only telling the authorities that a minor noblewoman on pilgrimage had been snapped up by these unwelcome transients? Ista could picture the provincar of Tolnoxo holding back just long enough to let the fleeing Jokonans become the problem of the provincar of Caribastos. Dy Cabon and Foix would not have permitted any such laggard approach, though—had they made it to safety? Were they still lost in the hills? Overcome or diverted by Foix's demon elemental, grown abruptly stronger in power, wit, and will as it feasted on that sharp mind?

Led on by who knew what reports from their scouts, the Jokonans left the thin woods and took to a dark road, putting several miles behind them at a fast trot. It was close to dawn when they turned in to a half-filled riverbed, the horses' hooves crunching loudly through the gravel and sand. If men had to speak, they rode close and leaned toward each other. Ista licked dry lips, stretching her aching back as much as she could with her hands tied in front of her. She had been left a length of cord between her lashed-together wrists and the saddle ring to which the rope was knotted, and if she lifted her hands and bent, she could just scratch her nose. It had been too long since she'd been permitted to drink, or eat, or piss, and the insides of her knees were rubbed raw.

And what if the column evaded ambush altogether, slipping over the border to Jokona after all? No question but that she would be handed over to Prince Sordso, taken to his palace, put up in comfort, nay, luxury, with attendants... many watchful attendants. Had she escaped one castle only to end up prisoner in another—and worse, made into a political lever against the few people she loved... ?

Blackness gave way to grayness, shadows to shapes to forms tinged with color, as the starry sky paled in the predawn. A low mist hung on the water and curled up over the flat banks, and the horses stirred it like milk as they passed. A little cliff, carved out by the riverlet, rose on their left, the reddish colors of its layers just beginning to glow.

A rock plunked into the dark water that slid along at the cliff's feet. Her flanking guard snapped his head around at the sudden noise.

A thwack—a crossbow bolt bloomed in his chest. He barely cried out as he fell into the gravel. A moment later, she felt the shock of his death like a lightning strike across her senses, dizzying her. Her horse was jerked abruptly into a trot, into a canter. All around her, men began to cry out, yell orders, curse. Answering shouts, and more arrows, rained down from above.

Five gods, let the attack be swift. Ferda and his men were in the greatest immediate peril, as the Jokonans might be inspired to slay their most dangerous prisoners at once before turning on the new enemy. Another death, and another, slashed across her inner senses like white fire even as her outer senses were thrown into a whirl of motion. She jerked her sore wrists back and forth in frustration against her bindings, but the knots had been tied tight and had failed to work loose even through the long night ride. Kicking her feet free of the stirrups and heaving off to one side in some mad effort to dismount would break her wrists before it broke their lashings; then she would merely be dragged.

A thundering of hooves, shouts, and screams rose from the front of the column; some bellowing cavalry charge down the river valley met the Jokonan van in a shock and clash of metal. Horses squealed and grunted and fell. More shouts came from the rear. The officer towing her yanked his reins up so sharply his horse reared. He stared around in panic.

The commander galloped toward him out of the melee, sword out, shouting in Roknari, motioning some others to follow. They swept up Ista and her captor and broke to the side, scrambling over the low bank there. The leading swordsmen cut their way through some crossbow-men in unfamiliar gray tabards who were running toward the fight. The half-dozen Jokonans and Ista burst past more riders and galloped wildly into the scrublands bordering the river's trees.

Ista's head was pounding, her vision blurred, alternately darkened and whited out with the stunning impacts of the deaths, so many souls in one place and moment violently uprooted from their bodies. She dared not pass out and fall—at this speed, her hands might well be torn off. All she could think was how unfair it had been to that poor soldier who'd been whipped last night, when his very commanders didn't hesitate to desert him...

She could see nothing but her horse's neck stretched before her, its ears laid back, and the hard ground whipping by below. Her foolish frightened horse didn't even have to be pulled, but raced the animal beside it until it threatened to become the leader, and her captor the follower. Their course bent away to the right in a wide curve. They slowed at last as they passed into a more rugged area, low hillocks clad in scattered woods at last hiding them from the view of any pursuit. Was there any pursuit?

The commander finally took time to sheathe his sword. He had not blooded it, Ista noted. He led the way into the wilderness, dodging and turning among the rocks and trees. Ista suspected he had no thought of choosing a route beyond confusing trackers, and would shortly be confused himself, again. Well, he could probably find north, and with so few followers to hide, perhaps that was all he needed to know. The woodlands thickened. They climbed a rise, descended a ravine. Ista tried to estimate how many miles they'd come from the point of attack. Five or six, at least.

She considered her own danger, as the horses picked their way slowly among the stones of the rivulet, and she caught her breath again. It was scarcely worse than before. She did not fear rape, or malicious torture, though she would doubtless share whatever hardships the Jokonans did in their hasty flight. These officers had lost everything—their men, their equipment, their booty, their honor, even their way. But if only they could present Ista to him, the prince of Jokona would forgive their every disaster. She was their hope of redemption. They would not let her go for money or threat, nor surrender her for life itself. So death by design did not await her at their hands, no; but death by misadventure or overwrought bad judgment, oh, yes, very possible. It hardly seemed an improvement.

They wound down the ravine for over a mile. It deepened and the sides grew steeper, wooded and overhung, but in the distance she could see a hazy paleness. They rounded a turn to discover the ravine opening suddenly out onto a flat, bright little river.

Framed by the sides, blocking the outlet, stood a lone horseman. Ista's breath caught in a chill, or was that a thrill? The horse's charcoal-gray sides were heaving and wet, its nostrils round and red, but it pawed the ground and shifted nervously, its muscles bunching in readiness. The man did not seem out of breath at all.

His dark reddish hair was unbraided, cut short in the Chalionese style, and curled around his ears in tangled strands. A short-trimmed beard covered his jaw. He wore chain mail, heavy leather vambraces, a gray tabard worked with gold over all. The tabard was splashed with blood. His eyes flicked as he counted up the odds: narrowed, glittered.

He swung his sword wide in salute. The hand that tightened on the hilt was filthy and blood-crusted. For just a moment, the most thoroughly fey smile Ista had ever seen on a man's face glinted more brightly than the steel.

He clapped his heels to his horse's sides and charged forward.